Puerto Vallarta vs. Mexico City – Which is a better Destination for Gay Travelers?
Do you ever notice the lack of negative reviews about destinations on the internet? Are places really that fabulous? As a gay man I’ve heard a lot of buzz about Gay Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Gay Friendly, beautiful Mexican men, relaxing beaches, colonial town, cheap prices. How can you go wrong?
As it turned out, there were many ways it could go wrong. I went there recently and found all the above categories to be lacking and if I had to describe the place in two words I’d use “Tourist Trap.”
I am a Gay American expat and I have been living in Mexico City for 5 years. I have fallen in love with the Mexican Culture, particularly its Gay Culture. I’m writing this to offer my honest experience of Puerto Vallarta for those of you who are considering a trip there.
Gay Puerto Vallarta’s Beaches
Playa de los Muertos is the gayest section of the beach in Puerto Vallarta. It is impossible to enjoy a peaceful afternoon on this beach because of the aggressive vendors who come up to you one after another, selling cheap, imported, garbage.
It is relentless and it never stops.
Want to be a responsible tourist and respect your host country by buying something from a local, even if it’s an overpriced, dated, Chinese, plastic refrigerator magnet? Well, be ready to buy 100 of them if you want to spend a few hours on the beach.
They come up one after another selling the same products. If one person in your group tells them no, they will approach every person in your group individually and stand in front of them until they say no. They will interrupt conversations, intimate beach moments, arguments, you name it.
It will literally drive you crazy and you’ll begin to feel trapped. You’ll hear all of your neighbors complaining about it but nobody knows how to make it stop. The only way to escape is to avoid the beach.
Do you have a love for handcrafted Mexican artisans? Good luck finding any in Puerto Vallarta. The things they sell are not Mexican. This is a huge missed opportunity to connect Mexican Artisans to an international market and it speaks to how little planning or thought has gone into the entire project of Puerto Vallarta. The entire town seems shamelessly focused on making a quick buck. It gets exhausting after a few minutes, and it goes on until the moment your plane takes off.
I’m serious! One ‘type’ of vendor is the tequila guy, who walks around the streets of the Romantic Zone with tacky flamboyant bottles of overpriced tequila and aggressively approaches tourists with their suitcases and repeats a memorized phrase “I can see you have room in your suitcase for this Tequila!”
Think the easiest way to neutralize the situation is to politely ignore him? Not in Puerto Vallarta. These tequila guys will continue to engage with you until you specifically tell them no.
So it’s completely impossible to take a walk down the street, or along the Malecon, or on the beach in Puerto Vallarta. I even found some other blog posts that talk about the beach vendor problem in Puerto Vallarta along with some common sense solutions to overcome the nuisance. Unfortunately none of these solutions worked for me.
La Zona Romantica or the Romantic District – Puerto Vallarta’s Gay Area
It is true that there is a street in this area where multiple gay bars are located. Here is what I didn’t like about the gay bar scene.
Disproportionally White
Am I going out on a limb assuming that gay tourists go to Puerto Vallarta with the hope of meeting Mexican Men? There is no local gay scene in Puerto Vallarta. The Mexican men you will meet are other tourists from Mexico City or Guadalajara. They are relatively well to do and not representative of Mexican men in general. Plus, there are more white tourists than Mexican tourists so chances are you’ll end up talking to other white guys and looking at the Mexican guys talking to others.
If you want to be eaten alive by Mexican men, you need to go to the gay bars in Mexico City. There you’ll be an exotic catch and you will experience rights of passage of gay development that are not possible in the United States.
Honestly there are more Latin Men in bars in the United States than in Puerto Vallarta.
Gay Massage Puerto Vallarta
One of the most tempting parts of Puerto Vallarta is the beautiful men who you find on many of the street corners of La Zona Romantica. They are all dressed in white polo shirts and they always talk to you as you walk by. They don’t speak English, so the conversation will not take long. In fact, they only give you a nice greeting and then offer you a massage.
I took one up on it. He was tall, muscular, young, dark skinned, with beautiful eyes and big lips. He took me to the second floor of a townhouse nearby. The second floor consisted of a long narrow rectangular space with a window at the far end. One side of the rectangle was a hallway, and the other was lined by what must have been 10 massage tables separated by curtains.
It was early in the morning so we were the only ones there. He took my to the one at the very end, the window unit.
On the street he quoted me $600MX for a 1 hour massage. As soon as we got inside he asked me if I liked a strong massage or a weak massage. The weak massage is what he quoted me, and the strong massage would cost $800MX.
He didn’t take his shirt off, and there was no happy ending. It was very businesslike.
And here lies another example of what I didn’t like about Puerto Vallarta. This guy wasn’t gay. He was a businessman. Mexican gay men are some of the most sexual men I have ever met. They love to meet each other and fuck. If you go to Mexico City you also meet Mexican men on the street, but they won’t be working. They’ll just be flirting.
In Mexico City, you’ll have more sex then you ever imagined possible, and you won’t pay a dime. So while it is very exotic to have massage men on every corner of Puerto Vallarta, I found that it’s a well known story. Poor men selling sexual services to rich men. Nothing can really happen here beyond a cold indifferent fuck, and who knows how much you’ll have to pay for that.
Sure, $600MX, or even $800 for the strong massage (yes I splurged for it) is cheaper than in the USA. Far cheaper in fact. But the guys in the USA who charge over $100USD per hour are professionals, not handsome kids from poor villages with no training.
Sure there are professionals in Puerto Vallarta who are gay. A friend showed me a menu of services that one of the professional escorts had sent him. It included everything from a massage, to sex, to a boyfriend experience, and even an amount for taking him out to dinner (food not included).
I have nothing against sex work, but like everything in Puerto Vallarta, it seemed very un-Mexican to me. If you want to take a Mexican guy out to eat, or go for a walk, or a casual fuck, Mexico City has so many guys who genuinely want to do that with you and they won’t charge. It will be their pleasure.
They will talk to you and joke with you and practice their English with you and they won’t be thinking of how much money they dan possibly get you to pay them by the end of the date.
This is the magic of Mexican Culture that you need to go to a real Mexican City to discover. And unfortunately, Puerto Vallarta is a make believe Mexican City that didn’t even bother to include any Mexican culture.
Here is a popular story I wrote about a massage I received in Mexico City that I think speaks to the type of gay culture exists there.
Food Paradise? or Food Desert?
When I lived back in the US, there was a Mexican restaurant that me and my gay friends used to love going to for their happy hours. $5US Margaritas, $7.50 for the Cadillac Margarita, Fajitas, Burrito, and Taco platters for under $10. Large portions with sides of refried beans, and rice. Unlimited chips and salsa.
This is northern Mexican food. The places that do this best are LA and Texas. Southern Mexico has a much different cuisine. It is not a modern cuisine, hence why it has not spread to United States and around the world like the northern Mexican cuisine.
Mexico City has world famous restaurants which are focused on presenting this ancient cuisine to curious foodies from around the world. Puerto Vallarta does not.
Fajitas
The restaurant industry in Puerto Vallarta has likely never eaten a fajita in their lives, nor do they ever intend to. Think I’m exaggerating? You’d be surprised at how little curiosity there is about international cuisine in Mexico.
I often hear that the United States lacks an ancient food culture that countries like Mexico have. I don’t disagree with this statement. But what we do have, in the US, is an experimental international food culture that will try just about anything. To my surprise, this is a uniquely American thing and is not found in Mexico.
What they do know, in Puerto Vallarta, is that if you put Fajita on a menu, the gringos will order them. But they don’t know how they are made.
I’ll make a controversial statement now, but those that have been will know what I’m talking about: If you order a fajita, or burrito, in Puerto Vallarta, you will get something weird. It will likely not come with beans and rice but rather a side of cold, unsalted, French fries.
Tacos
Taco platter? No such thing. In Southern Mexico, Tacos are not eaten with beans and rice. They are eaten standing up at taco stands. There are a few taco stands in La Zona Romantica. They were pretty good. Not destination level good, like you’ll find all over Mexico City. Mexico City has dozens of Taco Tours you can take, day and night, if you really want to experience original Mexican Tacos. Puerto Vallarta does not have any.
If they were to make a taco tour, I think they would have to go up a mountain, into the barrios, where all the locals live. I’m sure there are more taco stands up there than in La Zona Romantica. The fact that nobody has done that really speaks to how poorly developed the tourism industry in Puerto Vallarta is, and how clueless they are about what their strengths are.
Margaritas
And what about our beloved Margaritas? Same as the fajitas. You’ll get something weird. Mango, Maracuya, Guyaba, or other exotic fruits will be used instead of lemon in order to justify higher prices. Margaritas are a money grab in Puerto Vallarta. They’ll recommend the most expensive tequila, and use strong tasting exotic fruit. The glass will be tiny and filled with ice. It will be empty after one sip. You’ll keep ordering more and you’ll have no idea how much it will cost.
While cheap margaritas are a great way to fill up an American restaurant for happy hour, in Mexico margaritas are an opportunity to rip off foreigners. I’ve never found a Margarita in Mexico for less than $10US. I’ve seen many idiot YouTubers ordering $25US in Puerto Vallarta just to have some content to make a video about.
Shrimp
So what did I eat while I was in Puerto Vallarta?
Shrimp.
Two restaurants that I went to that served nuanced, well seasoned, and well garnished Mexican dishes are
I was lucky to have gone to these restaurants first. I fell in love with the shrimp and began ordering it at other restaurants. I always gravitated to coconut shrimp. By the end of my trip I was beginning to think that all the restaurants outsource the coconut shrimp to the same place because it all tasted the same: Shrimp in an extremely sweet batter with coconut on it. It’s tasty for beach food, but there is nothing Mexican about it.
It’s the type of dish you would enjoy at the Jersey Shore because you live in Philly or Newark, but not the type that you’ll fly across the continent to eat.
International
So if the Mexican food is bad in Puerto Vallarta, just imagine how the international food is. Think of the dinner parties your friends hosted in their twenties. Pad Thai with no texture at all, Pizza with barely any sauce, salads with tasteless dressing, where you find yourself wishing for the cradle of oil and vinegar from a diner back home.
Food Sickness
Finally, you will get sick. If you have a stomach of steel, your friends will get sick, and you’ll be taking care of them. This comes with international travel no matter where you go, so my advice is: go somewhere where the benefits outweigh this unfortunate side affect of international travel.
Sauna Spartacus – Puerto Vallarta’s Fabulous Gay Bathhouse
So where do you go to escape all of this if you’re already in Puerto Vallarta and you’re just realizing this the hard way? Sauna Spartacus is the best part about Puerto Vallarta. It is a three story bathhouse filled with hot guys all day and all night ready for fun.
There are multiple steam rooms, mazes, rooftop dipping pools, sun bathing areas, mazes, glory holes, you name it, it’s there. But the best part is the Mexican Men. While cruising culture has faded away a great deal in the United States, it is alive and growing in Mexico. The epicenter of this is Mexico City, and that is the primary focus of this travel blog.
Here you can flirt in silence in the steam rooms and then go upstairs and chat to other foreign travelers in English. You’ll feel at home, but the experience will be like your best trip to a bathhouse in the United States.
Best of all, you can relax on the rooftop patio where there are no vendors trying to get anything from you. This may be the only place in Puerto Vallarta where you can escape this torture.
Like I said, there is no local scene in Puerto Vallarta. The Mexican guys here will be from Mexico City or Guadalajara. There is also a big sex party scene on Grindr. These can be challenging if you speak no Spanish. If this is your scene, go to Mexico City.
Shopping
Perhaps you don’t know, I didn’t know before I moved to Mexico, but Mexico is home to a fascinating and inspiring artisan craft scene. Different regions have different crafts and different materials they work with. As I have traveled around Mexico I have really enjoyed discovering craft stores that showcase the local artisan scene.
Mexico City has a market that has vendors from all over the country who sell their goods there at reasonable prices. It is a must see for visitors to Mexico City.
Mexico City and other tourist destinations like San Miguel de Allende have high end stores which sell artisan products at higher markups. The quality is higher and the markups are fair.
And then there is Puerto Vallarta. Bring everything you need because you can’t find anything here. The t-shirts are of the lowest quality and have the tackiest design. This stands in stark contrast to the hot artisan t-shirt market in Mexico City and other parts of the country.
Gay Boutiques
If you dress like this, you’ll find plenty of clothes in PV. Personally I like gay boutiques staffed by guys I like who share my taste. If a place wants to call itself a gay destination, I think they need to have shopping that takes gay male tastes into account. Here you’ll find stores owned by heterosexual Mexicans who think gay men dress this way.
The clothes are over the top and it’s actually funny to spot the rare gringo queen walking around La Zona Romantica in these awful clothes.
The lower end stores sell beach wear but it is the worst you can imagine. My friend forgot his sandals and bought two pair of sandals that gave him blisters and actually cut his foot before he resigned to walk around barefoot or in the tenis shoes he brought from home.
Pharmacies
Pharmacies seem to be on every corner. They have a weird vibe that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Each has a sandwich board outside advertising the sale of controlled, prescription-only meds that are popular with partiers: Xanax, Kolonopin, Ritalin, Adderall, Viagra, etc. The prices are ridiculously high so forget reliving your college years of popping cheap pills. This, like the Margaritas, is a money grab so you’ll have to watch what you buy very carefully. Doesn’t that defeat the point of going all the way to Mexico?
While the drugs are behind the counter, the only product on display is sunblock. It’s kind of funny to find these elaborate monuments to sunblock all over beach towns focused on Gringos. This is an example of something that they do well. They provide sunblock. But like everything, it’s overpriced and the price seems to fluctuate noticeably.
I’ll never forget buying a small bottle of sunblock on my last day in Puerto Vallarta. My last bottle had run out and I was frustrated I’d have to buy another bottle considering I wouldn’t be able to carry it home in my carry on. I had just overpaid for a bland breakfast, but I had gotten used to paying this price by this point in the trip.
The price of the sunblock had gone up by like 20%, so I said thank you and decided to take advantage of the fact that there was a ‘pharmacy’ on every corner and go to another. But every place I went to had increased their prices.
After a few places I resigned and paid what they were asking me. I noticed I was angry when I was paying. It was more than anger, it was a dirty feeling in my stomach that I had only every felt after I had actually been robbed one day. I felt vulnerable. I realized how much trust we place in places we travel to and the travel industries that receive us.
I realized how much the travel industry in Puerto Vallarta had taken advantage of me over the course of the past few days. All I wanted was to just walk to my hotel, and spend a few hours on the beach before my flight.
As I walked through the romantic district I recognized the same guys working the street, aggressively inviting me into their restaurants. But they didn’t recognize me at all. They treated me like a stupid foreigner with a target on my back.
Is this what gay friendly is?
